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Thanks for your response. Coincidentally, e-mail #7 today covers the exact same subject.
I tend to get up around the same time every day, usually 6:30 to 7ish. I’m not sure how much actual sleep time I’m getting – I do tend to wake up at some point during the night and lie awake for a while, but I’ve stopped looking at the clock, so I don’t know when or how long it is. Thanks to Insomnia Coach, I’m already having pretty good success at not obsessing over the wakefulness during the night and just letting it happen.
It’s hard to say how much time I actually sleep each night, as opposed to lying quietly in bed. I’ve tried various sleep trackers with my Apple Watch and iPhone, but they are pretty unreliable. The only way to really know what phase of sleep you are in is by way of an EEG. That information is not available to the apps, so they track movement, heart rate, and breathing rate, and make an educated guess (really an assumption) as to what phase you are in and for how long. I find even the most highly rated of them to be very inaccurate. They will tell me that I’m in such-and-such a sleep phase when I’m actually lying there quietly, not moving, breathing slowly, with low heart rate, and staring at the insides of my eyelids.
Are you saying that you struggled today, or do you mean it is like that every day? Any change at all since starting the course?
As Martin suggests, checking with your doctor would be a good idea. MIne referred me to a sleep clinic, and they ran a test that found I had sleep apnea, with an average of 8 events per hour, an “event” being a stoppage of breathing. 8 is actually not a terriblly high number – some people experience far more than that – but it was worth dealing with. I use a CPAP machine every night, and my number is down to an average of 1.
Interestingly, this does not seem to have helped with my sleep much, but I had been having regular episodes of heart palpitations following a couple of episodes of atrial fibrillation four years ago, and these have almost disappeared with the CPAP usage. My doctor was not surprised at this, because sleep apnea can affect your health in more ways than just sleep.
Anyway, it’s worth looking into. Many people have found that the CPAP machine did indeed help with their sleep.
Hi Anariel
Newbie here, just started on Martin’s e-mails. Since you are a pharmacist, I don’t need to tell you about the dangers of benzos. My doctor prescribed 1mg Ativan for me years ago, which helped for a while, but eventually I was uncomfortable with that, so I tried cannabis oils, both prescription and non-prescription, with some success. The problem with cannabis as a sleep solution is that you have to experiment to find the right product and right amount to use, and if you do find an effective level, over time you can become habituated and have to continually increase the amount. For reasons that I won’t go into (because it is probably boring to anyone else), I started using a combination of Ativan and Cannabis some years back with initial success, but lately it’s become a struggle again.
I discovered Martin’s website and am hopeful that it will teach me to accept my insomnia and learn coping strategies instead of trying to conquer it. With any luck I may eventually be able to get off both the Ativan AND the cannabis. Really, how much worse could it be?
In the meantime, here is a suggestion that might help with falling asleep, although it may not help with the duration. Years ago, I discovered a podcast called “Sleep With Me” in which the host tells bedtime stories that are so boring, pointless, and meandering that they lull you to sleep. I listen through comfortable earbuds designed for side sleepers, and I rarely make it to anywhere near the end of the hour-long podcast before I’m out like a light. I think it’s usually around 15-20 minutes. As he will tell you, it’s not for eberybody, and it may not work the first few times you try it, but if you persist, you might be pleased with the result. Lately I’ve been waking up after 2-3 hours and unable to get back to sleep for a long time, which was stressing me out and causing me to tinker with the meds with no success, but thanks to Martin’s advice I’m already getting a little better at dealing with this.
